But roaming the planet are four times as many dogs who are their own masters—neighborhood dogs, dump dogs, mountain dogs. They are dogs, not companions, and these dogs, like pigeons or squirrels, are highly adapted scavengers who have evolved to fit particular niches in the vicinity of humans. In What Is a Dog? experts on dog behavior Raymond and Lorna Coppinger present an eye-opening analysis of the evolution and adaptations of these unleashed dogs and what they can reveal about the species as a whole. Exploring the natural history of these animals, the Coppingers explain how the village dogs of Vietnam, India, Africa, and Mexico are strikingly similar. These feral dogs, argue the Coppingers, are in fact the truly archetypal dogs, nearly uniform in size and shape and incredibly self-sufficient. Drawing on nearly five decades of research, they show how dogs actually domesticated themselves in order to become such efficient scavengers of human refuse. The Coppingers also examine the behavioral characteristics that enable dogs to live successfully and to reproduce, unconstrained by humans, in environments that we ordinarily do not think of as dog friendly. Providing a fascinating exploration of what it actually means—genetically and behaviorally—to be a dog, What Is a Dog? will undoubtedly change the way any beagle or bulldog owner will reflect on their four-legged friend.

    With stories that entertain as much as they inform, Wilson outlines the basic principles of evolution and shows how, properly understood, they can illuminate the length and breadth of creation, from the origin of life to the nature of religion. Now everyone can move beyond the sterile debates about creationism and intelligent design to share Darwin’s panoramic view of animal and human life, seamlessly connected to each other.Evolution, as Wilson explains, is not just about dinosaurs and human origins, but about why all species behave as they do—from beetles that devour their own young, to bees that function as a collective brain, to dogs that are smarter in some respects than our closest ape relatives. And basic evolutionary principles are also the foundation for humanity’s capacity for symbolic thought, culture, and morality.In example after example, Wilson sheds new light on Darwin’s grand theory and how it can be applied to daily life. By turns thoughtful, provocative, and daringly funny, Evolution for Everyone addresses some of the deepest philosophical and social issues of this or any age. In helping us come to a deeper understanding of human beings and our place in the world, it might also help us to improve that world.

    

    It highlights the enormous diversity of human experience and the ways in which archaeologists are able to learn about it. This includes the deep prehistory of human evolution, the more recent prehistory of postglacial foragers and farmers, and the literate civilizations of Egypt, the Mediterranean world, South and East Asia, and Central and South America. It provides an introductory account that takes the student through the human past using a regional and chronological framework, focusing as much on the archaeology of the everyday as on the spectacular and unusual.

    Members of a parallel humanity that evolved in Europe for hundreds of thousands of years, they were in direct competition with Cro-Magnons — modern humans. The way Neanderthals lived and the reasons why they disappeared 50,000 years ago offer a surprising mirror in which we can examine and learn more about ourselves. Illustrated, concise and readable, this is a fascinating exploration of human origins. "Lively, personal, refreshing, and instructive, this book should be read by anyone interested in their own origins and our extinct relatives." — Ian Tattersall, author of The Fossil Trail, The Last Neanderthal, and Becoming Human

    A worldwide tour of discovery, Tattersall takes the reader from 30,000-year-old cave paintings in France and anthropological digs in Africa, to examining human behavior in a New York restaurant. And by offering wisdom gleaned from fossil remains, primate behavior, prehistoric art, and archaeology, Tattersall presents a stunning picture of where humankind evolved, how Darwin's theories have changed, and what we reliably know about modern-day human's capacity for love, language, and thought. Widely praised in the media, and an Amazon.com Top-10 bestseller, Becoming Human is an amazing trip into the past and into the future.

    Beginning with the study of DNA in Egyptian mummies in the early 1980s and culminating in the sequencing of the Neanderthal genome in 2010, Neanderthal Man describes the events, intrigues, failures, and triumphs of these scientifically rich years through the lens of the pioneer and inventor of the field of ancient DNA.We learn that Neanderthal genes offer a unique window into the lives of our hominin relatives and may hold the key to unlocking the mystery of why humans survived while Neanderthals went extinct. Drawing on genetic and fossil clues, Pääbo explores what is known about the origin of modern humans and their relationship to the Neanderthals and describes the fierce debate surrounding the nature of the two species’ interactions. His findings have not only redrawn our family tree, but recast the fundamentals of human history—the biological beginnings of fully modern Homo sapiens, the direct ancestors of all people alive today.A riveting story about a visionary researcher and the nature of scientific inquiry, Neanderthal Man offers rich insight into the fundamental question of who we are.

    In addition to fieldwork and traditional methods, paleoanthropologists and archaeologists now draw upon genetics and other cutting-edge scientific techniques. In fifty chapters, Prehistoric Investigations tells the story of the many thought-provoking discoveries that have transformed our understanding of the distant past.

    He has a career to shine in and a beautiful family. But his marriage has broken down, and being a small-town cop is turning into a dead-end job.Hot-headed troublemaker Donnie is used to being side-eyed by the fuzz. Getting dragged into the station for a crime he didn’t commit is no big surprise – but a cop who gives a damn sure is.Ben has no clue how much a second encounter with the secretive redneck will shake up his life. Donnie’s sullen vulnerability arouses a passion Ben hasn’t felt for a long time. Soon, nothing matters but helping Donnie fight his demons. Can they carve a new life together out of the ashes?

    Technology, she writes, catalyzes changes not only in what we do but in how we think. First published in 1984, The Second Self is still essential reading as a primer in the psychology of computation. This twentieth anniversary edition allows us to reconsider two decades of computer culture--to (re)experience what was and is most novel in our new media culture and to view our own contemporary relationship with technology with fresh eyes. Turkle frames this classic work with a new introduction, a new epilogue, and extensive notes added to the original text.Turkle talks to children, college students, engineers, AI scientists, hackers, and personal computer owners--people confronting machines that seem to think and at the same time suggest a new way for us to think--about human thought, emotion, memory, and understanding. Her interviews reveal that we experience computers as being on the border between inanimate and animate, as both an extension of the self and part of the external world. Their special place betwixt and between traditional categories is part of what makes them compelling and evocative. (In the introduction to this edition, Turkle quotes a PDA user as saying, When my Palm crashed, it was like a death. I thought I had lost my mind.) Why we think of the workings of a machine in psychological terms--how this happens, and what it means for all of us--is the ever more timely subject of The Second Self.

    Yet we know less about the vagina than we do about any other organ of the human body. Why? In this dazzling smorgasbord of facts about female genitalia, Catherine Blackledge explores how the vagina has been conceived and misconceived over the centuries. In the past, medicine has misrepresented female sexual anatomy, reducing its remarkable complexities to the notion of a passive vessel. But, as this book shows, science is at last beginning to reveal the true structure and function of female genitalia, and the dynamic nature of the vagina's role in both sexual pleasure and reproduction. With a wide-ranging perspective that takes in prehistoric art, ancient history, linguistics, mythology, evolutinary theory, reproductive biology and medicine, Catherine Blackledge unveils the hidden marvels of the female form.

    • Assess for yourself the stunning visual evidence presented in some 200 photographs. • Examine previously unpublished testimony from expert informants. • Discover new research undertaken by von Däniken after the opening up of previously inaccessible regions, such as the jungle city “Buritaca 200” in Colombia.

    Through a mix of instruction, examples, and writing and visualization exercises, readers learn how to tap into their own stories and emotions to create realistic, complex characters.

    Anthropology, archaeology, art and architecture are all ways of making, and all are dedicated to exploring the conditions and potentials of human life. In this exciting book, Tim Ingold ties the four disciplines together in a way that has never been attempted before. In a radical departure from conventional studies that treat art and architecture as compendia of objects for analysis, Ingold proposes an anthropology and archaeology not of but with art and architecture. He advocates a way of thinking through making in which sentient practitioners and active materials continually answer to, or 'correspond', with one another in the generation of form.Making offers a series of profound reflections on what it means to create things, on materials and form, the meaning of design, landscape perception, animate life, personal knowledge and the work of the hand. It draws on examples and experiments ranging from prehistoric stone tool-making to the building of medieval cathedrals, from round mounds to monuments, from flying kites to winding string, from drawing to writing. The book will appeal to students and practitioners alike, with interests in social and cultural anthropology, archaeology, architecture, art and design, visual studies and material culture.

    In exchange for his brother's freedom to live his life as he wished, Saint promised to follow in his father's footsteps and become a preeminent surgeon in his father's medical practice. When events he never could have predicted took away Saint's ability to perform surgery, the bargain became null and void. With no safety net, and a life without purpose, Saint moved across the country, bought a wreck of a building in DTLA, and hoped while resurrecting the property he'd find a reason to live again. Then Max Connor entered his life, and Saint was dragged from the darkness of desolation into the light of love.